Unfortunately in my world, I never know what’s going to lay me up, or for how long. This week was no exception. I overdid it by having cooked carrots 2 days in a row without thinking about the fact that I ate them for 1 day and didn’t get sick… but this time a dose of food poisoning made things even more fun. I will think twice about leftovers for now – especially condiments that you think taste fine and should be ok.

Today I am sitting up, awake, and moving around more than I have been, which isn’t much. I made the stupid mistake of getting out of my sick-bed Wednesday and almost passed out in the shower, thus scaring the crap out of myself and my daughter! My fever seems to have broken finally. I have managed to eat some solid food and I’m not queasy – so that’s good news for me since I thought I’d end up in the ER with how I was feeling earlier in the week.

Through the midst of all this, my daughter is getting her schoolwork done – and more of it without any help or input from me, since I seem to have slept through some things this week. Not only that, but my daughter has been a wonderful nurse keeping me stocked with liquids on my bedside table and getting me to eat yogurt too.

In fun news, I managed to piss off one of my seniors who suddenly stopped talking to me without any warning as I was sitting across from her the other day. I dragged myself out of my sick-bed Wednesday morning so my daughter could do her weekly chore of helping this senior with her grocery shopping, since she is vision impaired and it makes the senior’s life easier. We’ve become friends over the course of this, but the friendship is slowly fading due to one-sidedness and some inconsiderate comments, statements, and events – not on my part since I have bit my tongue through it all and so has my daughter – who was very annoyed and irate some weeks.

I have no clue what pissed off Betty and considering how sick I was the other day (I had no energy, could barely walk, and rode a scooter in the market), Betty will have to grow up and act all of her 88 years, or go back to grocery shopping with a magnifying glass. Her behavior was rude. If this woman knew how much she has said or done to offend my daughter and myself, she’d be shocked… but she’s too clueless to notice or care. She has apologized for some of the stupidest things over the past few years… things that didn’t even warrant an apology – like buying my daughter candy – and it’s not like my daughter gets paid to help Betty every week. But the past few months Betty has started paying my daughter a dollar a week instead of buying her candy. I know my daughter likes candy, and a dollar isn’t much, but to my daughter, a dollar is something, especially for a few hours of work every week.

In fun school news, history the other day included my daughter having to build the Parthenon, color and decorate it, take a picture of it, and submit it. You got extra credit for including people. So the Parthenon was printed out, cut, taped together, colored to look like it was on fire with flames going up all around the building. Then the ancient Greeks surrounded it for their share of extra credit – a stuffed rat, a tiny piggy bank, R2D2, and a little ceramic owl.

It has now been proven that as long as the assignment is submitted, it doesn’t matter if you followed the directions given, or not, as long as it’s submitted. Why do I say this? Well for starters, my daughter wrote in black all over the walls and roof of the Parthenon, “I do not like this!,” which seems to be her reoccurring theme in this class when arts and crafts and tying knots in rope is part of the assignment… but she got her grade on this project today – 100! Plus in class today the teacher was discussing the project and how she loved some of them and up comes the pic of my daughter’s with the teacher complimenting her! My daughter wanted to ask her if she could see clearly and I told her to shut up about it. My daughter was also the only student to include people with her building.

I can’t wait to see what they think of my daughter’s latest submission of an Etruscan archway! Personally, I am considering actually setting fire to one of the next projects and then taking a picture to submit. Care to bet that it still gets a grade of 100? My daughter is so lucky cause I would’ve gotten a serious beating for that kind of work – but in this case, I think it’s going to keep the class interesting in a warped sort of way.

We have been having a go round with the Science teacher ever since the waste of an advisor let her know I had issues that I didn’t have. I have listened to this teacher in her online class. She is not warm and fuzzy. That’s fine. She’s not empathetic. Okay. But I cannot tolerate someone coming off rude and snotty to an entire group of their students. My daughter has had reason to email the teacher, or type to her in the online class. Half the time the questions are ignored, or not correctly answered. In class after asking a simple question, my daughter’s head was chewed up and spit out by the dragon lady.

Last week I had to email this teacher because her link to an external website was not working. The kids have a lot of work on external websites. It was rather easy for me to Google the website and get to it. I heard back from the teacher hours later with her wanting to know what links didn’t work. I let her know. Her response to my email once again showed me that she has a reading comprehension problem. She has no clue what she’s assigning these kids to work. I highly doubt she’s ever checked out any of these websites to see how they even work! Further proof of that came from her ignoring that I pointed out to her that she neglected to send the login info to this website like she stated she would do.

So just how was I able to log in? This teacher is very predictable and uses the same passwords for everything. I figured out the login id and the first password I typed in worked. My daughter even asked her in class how to change the password on the site. It’s not possible on a student account and the teacher still doesn’t realize this. I am not giving her that clue – she’s on her own after my latest email to her. I shouldn’t have to do what I just did to show her the problems.

We start off with last week. My daughter got a zero as a grade on an assignment that not only wasn’t due yet, but it wasn’t on the checklist or content for the week. The only reason I figured it out was because I looked under grades and saw it there. This got me annoyed with my daughter thinking she wasn’t following things as she should be. Nope, it was another science teacher screw up.

The teacher sent the following email out to my daughter last week. This is one of two. The other was resolved when the teacher sent back another response saying she has the work now. As a side note, I am not editing any typos (school links, names, and titles have been removed or replaced):

“I already did this. Are my assignments missing because of the glitches?”

There was a nice glitch on one of the external websites. It cleared out all the assignments for the week AND cleared out any of the completed work as well. What’s the meaning of that? All the kids have to redo the work they already did. So the teacher writes back with:

“No, that is Science Fusion.

I received the brainpop on Cellular Respiriation on 9/13, but I never received this brainpop on cell specialization. Please do this.”

I know for a fact that the kid already did this assignment and not only did I witness her send it off to the teacher, but it’s one of the assignments we had an argument about because it was one of the ones the kid was graded a zero on. Why? Because instead of having everything set to a deadline of 5 pm or later, she has it all set for 6 am on the day it’s due. Being that she’s in Florida, my daughter is screwed at 4 am our time! Plus all the work is supposed to have a Friday deadline. But I am not going to deal with this when it comes to this teacher. I don’t think she’d comprehend it.

So after the latest response, I have the kid redo both assignments. For Brainpop assignments after you take the quiz you are directed to a page that you type in the teacher’s email address and your name, the class is optional. Nice and simple – just 3 lines and hit send. Well I typed it out this time and added after my daughter’s name “My mom witnessed me taking this for a second time!” I did pretty much the same for the class. There is no arguing about it this time. Now it’s time for me to deal with this teacher AGAIN! I shoot back a response to her via my daughter’s school email:

“This is ABC’s mother. Can you kindly give us a direct link to this Brainpop? I have helped ABC try and find this assignment twice now. I believe this is the same one she emailed you about last week because she couldn’t find it. It’s hard enough to find a working link to the correct site.

If you don’t give links to what you want them to do, not only does it make it harder for them to find it – but in this case, it can’t be found. The kids have to log in and hunt.”

Well since she failed reading comprehension and obviously has never logged in to the site to see what it’s like, nor has she ever checked the links she puts up on the class pages… I got this back today, which included a file on how to log in to brainpop with it’s link and the login id and password:

“I received this brainpop results late Friday and I put it in the gradebook on Sunday.

The links are posted in 3 places in the Science course.

They are located on the Science homepage in Resource widget on right side of page, it is posted often in checklists, it is posted in Resources- Content- 7th Grade Resources

I also posted it in News.

I also posted directions on how to submit brainpops correctly.

I am reattaching directions and I will post the link. All the resources used in my course are posted in these 3 places. There is no reaseon for them to hunt for anything in my course.

(link to brainz given)

Please let me know if you need anything further.”

Like I said, she has a comprehension problem. I discovered that after asking me last week to give her the links that didn’t work so she could fix them, that she didn’t. I guess it was because I didn’t spell it all out for her with the link and did it her way – it’s over there!

So now she just got blessed with a response that is about as polite as I can go at this point. I do hope she reads it. I do hope she gets a clue. If I have to go through this again, it’s not going to be pretty – and I really don’t want to deal with this idiot on the phone. It amazes me how some people can be so book smart, yet so stupid and lacking of common sense and other much needed skills!

“I don’t need directions on how to access the Brainpop website, nor does my daughter. What I was asking for was the direct link to the exact Brainpop you wanted ABC to do. Giving a link to Brainpop is rather simple. Sometimes figuring out which Brainpop assignment you want the students to complete is not so simple.

When you log into Brainpop, you have to select Science. From there you have to select the proper lessons. In this case, it would be Cellular Life & Genetics. When you click on that link, you are now staring at 26 links. Due to the setup on Brainpop, you cannot tell what you have already completed, or haven’t completed. The only way to know something is done is from your end, if you receive an email from the site/student. Given that there are many problems and issues on the internet, and things don’t always work as they should, you may not always receive an email.

It would be quite helpful if you made sure all of these links you claim you have up work. I know one just gives me a .docx file to download when I click on the link. Last week we had issues with one or two of your links to outside sites not working. It was easier for me to hunt down the site on my own vs. wait for a response. I think there was also a case a few weeks back with an assignment not being on the checklist, but it was on content.

I just double checked since I did email you about this last week. There are 2 links on the news page under the resources sidebar that do not work. One is the link to Science Fusion and the other is to SmartScience Labs. Both links give a blank page with error messages. I just looked under Week 7 checklists to find another link that doesn’t work. This would be:

(teacher’s non working link)

However, if you post the link as:

(a working link to the site) it works and gives you the login page.

The link of (another working link that’s different to the site) also works.

Also, if you go under content to find the current week’s work, as it was the case in past weeks – you get a .docx file downloaded to your computer vs. the listing on the screen of work for the week. That word document does not contain any links whatsoever, just what the assignments are.

The reason you have been hearing from me vs. my daughter is because my daughter does not find you to be approachable. I know I listened to you in one class a few weeks back and you came off rather snotty. I can understand that your job is frustrating and you may lose patience – but put yourself in the students’ place and think about how they feel and what they’re going through. This is new territory for a lot of them.”

I won’t bother explaining to this teacher about Word’s default settings for saving documents. I don’t want to confuse her and let her know that I can’t open .docx files on my computer because I have an antiquated version of Office on my computer. I just deal with the files on the craptop and transfer files back and forth between the computers as needed. I tried pointing this fact out to someone in charge at the school and it was deer in headlight time! Can you imagine explaining this to the science teacher? No thank you!

As a homeschooling parent, I have seen more than my fair share of things you must learn, but will never use in your lifetime. Today’s history lesson included the Pythagorean Theorem. Yes, you read that right – it was in history, not math! In all my years, I have never used it. I’m sure my late ex did though, as did his father and grandfather, since they were carpenters, and house builders. It’s too late for me to ask any of them.

Also a part of today’s history lesson was an advice column by Aristotle. I can’t wait until the teacher reads that! Yesterday was Socrates, who answered everything with a question, so you can only guess how that assignment went. Here’s today’s advice column:

Dear Aristotle,

I hate school. It’s mostly all because of one class, history. I thought it was just history like it should be, but it’s not. I think this class is stupid and would like to learn about history instead of math, arts and crafts and other stupid things. What should I do?

Signed
I hate my school

Dear I hate my school,

Try starting your day with the class you like the least and get it out of the way. Sorry there’s nothing I can do about the class as these things are out of my control and I have no clue about any of it.

Signed
Aristotle

I think it’s much better than my kid answering a question with asking why she has to create a question for something she doesn’t have a question about. It also could have been a lot worse than it was… and I am kind of jealous. I would’ve gotten the shit beaten out of me for doing work like that. I encourage it now. As long as my child is learning, I believe she has the right to question the stupidity of things she finds stupid. Why should I stifle her? I am tired of correcting the mistakes of these online teachers, let alone repeatedly having to deal with their holier than though snotty attitudes. If they did their job right in the first place, let alone checked their work, what they post, etc., I, or my daughter, would not be emailing to ask them questions as often as we have to (as is the case with the bitchy science teacher).

Now let’s just hope that this teacher finally shows up for class this week! Last week she was a no show with a substitute teacher armed with the wrong lessons – American history instead of ancient Greece. Two weeks ago class was cancelled. She ended up recording the class at her regular time and with 2 students who showed up anyhow. It was rather insulting to those who had questions, and are having issues with the class – which is the majority of the class. Only 1 kid said she liked the class – and she’s a part time student who can’t spell to save her life (makes me proud of my daughter and how her spelling has improved!).

If I thought my kid had problems getting the work done, there are kids taking 4 hours a lesson. That is why I now help the kid with this one class. I set up forms for her so she doesn’t have to write, scan, and submit. Now it can be typed and dumped in the daily dropbox. If need be, I take notes for this notebook she’s supposed to be keeping, which has now become a folder on the craptop. It’s cut history down to 120 minutes or less – usually 90 minutes, or damn close to it. Today was a first – 30 minutes. Why? Because my child did not cut rope, measure it, tie knots into it, create a triangle, give its measurements, and take a picture to submit of it. Yes, you read that right too – that was just one part of about 4 things that were to be done today besides watch the recording and complete the assignments in it. Instead my child did and submitted the other part of the assignment – measure 4 things with right angles, give its measurements and the hypotenuse. Now history has confused my child with the mere mention of square roots… this at a time when she is first starting simple algebraic equations and grasping it no less.

Yup, I’m loving history too… things I never learned about and would like to learn about… but we are learning everything but…

Now let’s see how much of this you retained and used in your lifetime. I will preface this by stating that I can still play hot cross buns on a recorder, so just how useless is that?

We got a late start yesterday. My daughter did her volunteer work, and I went grocery shopping. We both got home later than expected. Just in time for the kid’s Spanish class.

After Spanish, the kid wasted at least 2 hours of my time doing nothing… unless pissing me off counts. It got mighty loud in my apartment. I think the entire neighborhood heard me – but more importantly, I think my daughter did too.

She finally got her ass in gear. I made her start with history. I have come to the conclusion that history requires my help every day. I thought saving what we didn’t like and what had the most work for last was a good thing – wrong! Do it first since I have no desire to be hearing about ancient Greece when I should be eating dinner, or watching the idiot box.

By jove, I think she’s got it!

The kid watched the recording and I explained to her about taking notes and how easy the class could be if she took good notes – any notes would be good! She’s just not thinking or using common sense with this class. She sees the workload and that’s all she sees.

Class still took 90 minutes yesterday, but all the work was done and submitted for that class for the day. I helped by typing for her since I converted the handout that was supposed to be printed out, filled out, scanned, and placed in the dropbox for that assignment, by converting the page to a form that could be typed in, saved, and dumped in the dropbox – saving trees, lead, ink, and a lot of time – and more importantly, my patience.

I remembered the cheap loaner tablet we have. I hooked up the tablet to the school craptop. Arts and crafts? We got it covered now! Yesterday was a decorative ancient Greek scroll. We opted to say “I don’t like this” using the Greek alphabet. It took a lot less time than breaking out the toddler box of school supplies we were provided with, coloring, and scanning it. Sorry, but even drawing on the tablet can set my kid off on a tangent for hours while she draws and doodles.

My kid knocked out the rest of her work and was done by 6 pm last night. I was so thrilled. We enjoyed a nice dinner together and goofed off for the night until bedtime. I got the kid to bed, or at least in her room and in her bed, before midnight.

Today was the early Science class. We’ll ignore the fact that the teacher is getting bitchy with the kids and losing her patience.. for now. If she types to my daughter in a snotty tone again, she will find out what my pissed off type can read like!

After Science we tackled history again. A new record – an hour!

The rest of the work due for today was finished. Spanish for the week is done too.

Guess what time we were done? Before 4 pm! If my daughter didn’t slack so much, she could’ve been done by 2.

I can get used to this! I hope this is a sign of things to come and good changes. Yesterday we were both ready to tell this school to shove it.

Today is the day my daughter gets her assed kicked into shape and on schedule. It won’t be a good day for her, and probably just as bad for me… however I should not be spending this much of my time every day getting her ass in gear.

Everyday there is an online class. Today was math. Today was the introduction to the new math teacher. She’s very intelligent, experienced, and has a clue. I can understand what she’s teaching. The kid can understand it (so far!). Her class unconfused both of us, and I was only listening, since I was in the room.

The class went about 30 minutes. Then the teacher stopped the recording and said that those who didn’t have questions could leave. I look over towards my daughter and her head is down next to the laptop. Her eyes are closed and she is sleeping!

This is not how I want to start my day. It’s nice that it’s only a 4 day week, but it feels like a friggin Monday in my world.

I’m going to have to be even stricter about bed time and the kid actually going to sleep now. Last night I got her to bed at a reasonable hour, but I know she didn’t go to sleep. There’s evidence in the kitchen that she was up late again, or woke up in the middle of the night again to make a cup of herbal tea. I have gone through 3 days of this. The kid either didn’t get enough sleep, or was up in the middle of the night and went back to sleep. This is a big sign that my kid is stressing out about something in her life again. Sorry, this nonsense doesn’t fly for me. We’ll have to talk this out later. I have a few ideas of what’s going on. New rules are going to have to be put into place.

I give the kid time to wake up and get started on her lessons. It’s so much online computer time, who can blame her for passing out and napping! There’s no textbooks. Not even a workbook. It’s ALL online. The only class that seems to even call for a notebook is the much dreaded history. That class is going to waste a shitload of ink and piss me off more than it already has… but smartass that I am, I have a partial solution – I think!

Instead of printing out all these pages that need to be printed, written on, scanned, and put in the teacher’s dropbox, I’m going to have the kid fill them out on the computer. I won’t have to print and scan – and that saves me some of my time as well. The kid can just type and save. Instead of it being in her notebook, it can be in a folder on the computer. Paper and ink is saved – and so is some of my sanity in the process (or so I hope!).

I’m going to be a complete ass for some of the arts and craftsy crap that I think is beyond stupid for a history class as well. If the teacher wants a map printed out and colored, it will be – just not with crayons, markers, or colored pencils. The kid was informed she can do that on the computer as well… the same goes for the silly travel brochure the kid has to create for a selected ancient city in Greece, as well as the required postcard she must do and submit.

I have finally figured out history a bit. It’s a lot of work, but it’s not a lot that needs to be submitted to the teacher in a day. Let’s see how much we can chisel all the time wasted on that class down to AND get all the required work done in a week. The only problem work is still the stupid 3 panel triptych. That’s not due until the end of the quarter.

I have done my fair share of bitching and complaining about the school and teachers the past 3 weeks. Now it’s time to whip my daughter into shape. As long as my daughter makes the effort, I will go to hell and back for her. If my daughter thinks she’s going to slack, I will just kick back and she can get bad grades for not doing what she should, when she should… which also means she will not earn any perks with me, will also lose privileges, get punished, get grounded, and get very pissed off in the process.

Parenting a teen was never easy. I know how I was. I also remember how my mother was. Therefore, I try to be more understanding than my mother ever was with me.

In this day and age with the internet, cell phones, and all the other cool gadgetry of this century, parenting is an even bigger task. You no longer just need to teach your kids their ABCs and manners. You also need to teach them safety – both out in the real world AND online. There are many TV shows that show you how kids react to a stranger with free ice cream or a lost puppy. There are no TV shows that show you what can go on online. Luckily I am very experienced with computers and the internet.

I don’t use a keystroke logger, or any software on my computer to keep tabs on my daughter. I hope I have taught her well, and also by example. I know that not everyone is as they claim to be. I know that people can, and do, airbrush pictures (I have had someone pull that on me many years ago!). Now with social media sites, cellphones, webcams, and all the other goodies, it’s even easier – just pick a picture of someone you like and you can claim it’s you!

I have met many online friends in real life over the years, and this was in the days before social media sites! This was from the days of IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Some I have travelled to meet. Others were travelling and in my neck of the woods. And then there were the local friends. I even met my daughter’s father online. We were just friends for years before we ever met in person and felt a connection. Even he wasn’t completely honest with me throughout the years, so I have a lot of experience with things that make you go hmmmm.

My daughter loves playing on RPG sites for teens. Like me, she doesn’t use her real name online. Sorry, she has a real psycho grandmother who we want no contact with, and have already used the threat of a restraining order to get rid of her. Online stalking is even easier.

At my daughter’s young age, she has already dealt with the death of her father and family having cancer. She had an online friend with cancer who thought it was a great joke to say he was dead. Then she had another online friend who she ended up talking to daily on the phone for hours. He too decided to play dead. Except with him, I figured it out and had enough info about him to prove he was full of shit. A few months later this kid came back from the dead with some off the wall BS story that everyone BUT my daughter believed. That same day she learned that her friend, the cancer survivor, wasn’t dead either.

WTF? Why would teen kids lie like that? I believe in karma. Don’t even lie and say you were sick or the car broke down, or it will really happen. Lie about death? Oh, hell no!

My daughter cried and grieved for her friend who died from cancer. She was a mess for 3 weeks. I finally had to do a Moonstruck, “Snap out of it!” with her, because everyone was losing patience, and my daughter was a puddle of shit during that time.

Now to officially confirm that I was right about one supposed friend (who I always thought had a few screws loose), and that he never died either… here we go again! Luckily anger took over and my daughter was stronger in the end. She learned a lesson from it all. Those 2 friends will never have the opportunity to type or talk to my daughter again. She wants nothing to do with either of them, and who can blame her?

I warned my daughter once again to be careful with people online because you just never know. So my daughter finds a new RPG site for teens to play on. She makes a few new friends on there. There’s one boy in particular… He asks no questions about my daughter’s personal life. She asks none about his. I finally questioned it. Even online, you want to learn about a friend, don’t you? She thought it was odd too. She finally started asking questions. She’s not like that with her other online friends, whether they’re boys or girls.

Questions got answered, and questions got asked. The story that was unfolding was too weird to be true. This 17 year old boy in the UK was disowned by his parents because they blamed him for his brother’s death (long story short, as he put it). He lives in his own flat on his own, and works. I find it odd that this lad has the money for a VIP membership on this RPG site since I can’t afford it after paying bills. How does he manage to pull that one off? I also have better ways to spend my money – which can upset a teen, but she knows she gets what is affordable when she’s deserving. The VIP thing really sets my daughter off now. How does he afford it?

The kids exchanged pictures via email. This kid is skinny, but cute. Odd. It doesn’t fit with his description of being anti-social. The picture is too dramatic. On top of which, how does this kid work, or anything else, when it seems like he’s always on the RPG site? That is something else my daughter was pondering. Plus she finds it odd that he has a laptop, but no webcam, or even a microphone so they can chat. Friends in the states she can not only chat with online, but also on the phone. Friends out of the country she can chat with via a webcam or a microphone. Not with this kid… odd! Even the kid thinks it’s odd too.

My daughter asks him if he can cook. Not only can he cook, he can cook ANYTHING. Really? I’m a good cook and I can’t cook everything! Very odd. The hairs on the back of my neck are getting set off, but I don’t want to alarm my daughter. I was just feeling sorry for this kid. How can parents disown their own child? Then I slept on it.

I realize my daughter has his email address. I know he told her he thinks Facebook is boring and that he doesn’t have a Facebook page. Really? How many teens DON’T have a social media page?

Not only do I have his email address, but it’s is his first and last name and date of birth combined. Dumbass!

I start my search before I even get my coffee. I don’t know where in the UK to look. I remove the gmail part of his email address and searched with the full name and DOB part. BINGO! He’s on Youtube. He’s doing a card trick. Funny how his hands and fingers are really fat. It doesn’t mesh with the really skinny kid we got a picture of. Ok, no big deal. There’s a video of his mum and brother, and another of just his brother. I guess his brother isn’t dead after all. I notice there’s a city listed on Youtube for him in the UK… back to Facebook we go!

I know I can’t find him by his email address, but I did find him by his name and location in the UK. Holy shit! Not only is his brother still alive, but he still lives at home. He’s not 17. He’s 19 going on 20. He’s not cute. He’s not skinny. He has a lot of friends on FB, so he can’t be terribly anti-social, can he?

So now it comes down to telling someone you know they lied and you didn’t like being lied to. It’s expected that he’s going to deny it. It doesn’t matter. The truth is known now. It wasn’t what he looked like – it’s that he lied. My daughter thought he was a nice person, but she just can’t handle people who lie about who or what they really are. She would’ve and could’ve continued to be friends, IF only he hadn’t tried to pull a mega scam about himself.

I’ve taught her well I think. I just wish her life didn’t have to be so painful.

I found a recipe somewhere online this week. As is my habit, I pinned it so I could easily find it again. It was better than ok the night it was made. It spent the night in the frig. The next day we had a piece. OMFG! This is a wonderful cake! And here I was doubting the ganache. The ganache is awesome. We’ll definitely be saving this recipe and making it again.

It wasn’t overly sweet at first. The tartness of the yogurt cut the sweetness. You couldn’t taste the yogurt the next day. Even my weird kid, who is a hit or miss about cake loves it. She prefers cookies, but this cake was better than a bag of double chocolate Milano cookies when you have your period (American women will understand that reference!).

Look at this lovely picture the original blogger took:

It tastes as good as it looks – even better after a rough week or a bad day.

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable weekend. We’ve been vegetating. We’re making easy meals and still haven’t gone grocery shopping… unless a trip to Family Dollar for ice cream and milk counts.